And When The Time Comes A Calling
by Glittery-excuse-for-a Fae
Summary: Character Death, With Sherlock Gone, John is left to carry on,  left to live a normal pedestrian life without Sherlock, How does He cope?  Just  like this, Character Death! you have been warned


Authors Note:

**Well I know I should be working on the one shot, and the other Sherlock fic but this idea came to me after listening to an awesome song, called 'Goodbye my friend'**

**it is angst and Character death so all of you who don't like, or aren't happy with it then please don't read I don't want people to be blaming me for being blubbering wrecks at work or before work!**

**that said tissues at the ready and I hope you enjoy!**

Disclaimer: 

**Don't own Sherlock, Moffat does, don't own the song I mentioned above either, so I own nothing, and that really makes me a little upset!**

**but don't sue me for writing this BBC!**

***Bows and leaves the stage***

This was different, John had never been to crime scene without Sherlock before, Sherlock, even saying the man's name mentally made him want to run back to Baker St, stay there and never come out.

But Lestrade had asked him here, Anderson was off sick with a rather nasty virus and there was no-one Chief Inspector Lestrade trusted more than John Watson.

So here he was. in one of those silly jumpsuits to prevent contaminating the crime scene, looking over the body of a seventeen year old female.

Sherlock would have loved this case.

He mentally chided himself for saying the mans name even though it was a mental outing, maybe he would be able to think of that wonderful, irritating man one day with pride, pride that he had been able to almost tame, him pride that he had called Him his. But now all he could think of when he heard or mentioned that mans name was blackness, all consuming blackness.

He remembered fights they had had, words that he wished he hadn't said but had never taken back. He remembered soo much he wished he could have said also, things that up until now he thought he still had time to say.

"The frailty of life, eh John" Lestrade said breaking him out of his reverie.

"Yeah people at that age think they'll live forever." he replied, the word forever stuck in his mouth and bile rose up to meet it. He hadn't told Greg yet, hadn't had the heart to tell him that… What had happened.

How did you tell someone like Greg what had happened, how did you even start, were you clinical, were you professional, after all Greg and… Well they had been friends, on some level, it was just too much, and John was trying so very hard to come to terms with it himself without getting anyone else involved.

But Greg needed to know, he couldn't fob the inspector off with 'oh he's abroad' forever.

He supposed that Mycroft would make things public if he wanted the rest of the world to know and if he didn't well there were ways to keep that sort of thing quiet, people could be hushed up.

to John that seemed unfair, He deserved to be posthumously awarded some sort of medal, he deserved press coverage and lots and lots of glowing obituaries in the paper about how fabulously wonderful he had been, how it was such a huge loss to England, to the world, he deserved acclaim for the hero he was.

John knew one thing he would not, could not, be the one to start the ball rolling, he was not that strong.

he haunched down and examined the body of the woman, teen.

it all seemed boring, and John wondered if this was how Sherlock had felt when there had been no cases.

and there went his name again, it deserved to be treated reverently, not tossed on the wind as if it were nothing.

"So John any idea when Sherlock's gonna be back?" Greg asked

"Umm, no, do you need him on this case?"

"No, course not I just wondered, you two haven't had a noter argument have you?"

"Not recently no"

"Good because that time he almost decked you with the frying pan was bad enough, lets try to avoid incidents like that in future, or you can just text me and warn me about projectile kitchen utensils before I arrive."

John smiled wryly "Oh don't worry, there will be no more Frying pan incidents of that I can assure you."

"Shame, has he decided to behave from now on then?" Greg asked a smile on his face.

This was torture for John, but he kept the ruse going, just a few days more and then he would tell them, tell them all.

The thought made him sick.

He had coped with death so often, all those years ago in the army, and then when he had returned with his sister, Mrs Hudson and the multitudes of people he had seen as corpses, they had all dented him, but this, this person he had blown him apart, and he didn't know if he had the strength to put himself back together, wasn't quite sure if he wanted to.

To be in this many pieces meant not having to feel, or was that untrue, if he was in this many pieces if he felt, if he allowed himself to experience joy, pain sorrow regret, would all those little pieces feel it, would the pain magnify?

He didn't want to know the answer.

his phone beeped and he looked at it.

_12, Tuesday._

He knew who it was from and he nodded to himself. He would go.

It was the kindest thing to do.

He shook his head, suddenly the crime scene had become oppressive, the air thick, he had to get away.

"I'll text you, ok?" he said quickly wanting to get away as fast as possible.

'What was the cause of death?" Greg asked watching the shorter man almost bolt away.

"Blockage in the traquia Greg, she suffocated." he replied in a bored tone.

Greg Lestrade wondered when John had turned into Sherlock when it came to these cases.

He also wondered what the matter was, he hoped Sherlock could sort it out when he got back.

Arriving back home to emptiness, to a silent flat had been a common occurrence in the past week. for the first two days he had kidded himself into believing that Sherlock had indeed just gone abroad for a case.

Day three when Mycroft had arrived bearing 'The News' he had pretended that Sherlock's brother was wrong, but as it sunk in he began to realise that Mycroft was never wrong.

now on friday, day five he couldn't seem to put the effort into pretending.

He found he didn't care.

He dropped his coat on the bannister, before trudging up the the flat, he put the kettle on to boil and made himself a cup of tea, narrowly avoiding making two, making two would just be stupid. There was no-one here to drink the remaining cup and he had done that far too many times in the past few days.

He booted up his laptop and stared at the blank word document wondering what he could write, what he should write.

What was the point of writing anything, soon there would be nothing to write about.

after Tuesday he would write something, his last blog entry, a blog he had kept up for ten years, ten glorious years, the last entry should have a good title, it deserved a good title.

He wasn't sure what title he would have.

he had time to think on it.

he shut his laptop down again and contemplated what to do, there was a pile of washing up waiting to be seen to and the laundry basket was getting rather full, Sherlock never seemed to do any washing.

John put his head in his hands and cried, grateful there was no-one in the house that would hear.

Mrs Hudson had passed on two years ago, leaving the house, the whole house to them, her boys.

She had been proud of them, loved them both like sons, despite her complaining.

John at forty five was now the proud co-owner of a house.

that suited him just fine, Sherlock and he had discussed the matter of the house, of renting the other flats out but found that they didn't wan't to. they were happy with their own little flat, their sanctum, where they laughed argued, made love, slept, ate, lived. it didn't need change or improvement, Sherlock's Sofa would forever remain his and John's chair would be the same, a little place to cal their own, away from the outisde world

John woke up to the feeling of gummy eyes, the sort of sensation one gets after crying for too long and falling asleep. he rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands trying to rub the sensation away, before going to the kitchen to throw cold water over his face.

he knew it was childish to keep to one area of the flat, and falling asleep in his chair was taking its toll on his neck and shoulders, but he couldn't work up the courage to venture towards their room.

How silly was that, a man who had done soo much, seen soo much war afraid to go into a bedroom or any area near there.

But it was the memories that would assault him that he was afraid of.

Day three in the evening he had burst into tears when the chinese delivery boy came, the boy had said that he had brought the usual, on on receiving the food had found Sherlocks favourite meal there.

That had been two hours of hot salty rivers running down his face and breath hitching in his throat.

In some ways it was understandable why he didn't want to move from his safe haven.

"It has to be faced Yorick, I can't keep living like this, its not life" He said facing the skull.

The gaping mouth made no reply.

John found he didn't really mind, it was still conversation, however one-sided.

He took his now cold mug of tea into the kitchen and set it with the plates and glasses that seemed to have multiplied while he slept, that would have to be faced too, sooner rather than later, before it became a health hazard.

it could be done after he had showered and put-on a clean set of clothes.

he steeled himself and began to walk to 'their' room for a clean set of clothes.

he should really start thinking of it as His room now.

Entering the room and finding it as Sherlock had left it, as he had left it nine days ago was almost too much, there was a mug on his bedside table, on Sherlocks a very untidy stack of case notes, that threatened to spill onto the floor.

the bedsheets were still rumpled, as the pair had left them, when all thoughts of a lie in on a sunday morning had been blown out of both their minds by a simple text.

Sherlock had apologised and given him a knee melting kiss to make up for the fact that he would have to be gone.

a few days at the most, that was what he had said.

John wondered when he should stop expecting to hear a key in the front door, the creak of the fourth stair as a person walked on it.

John wondered when it was expected of him to stop waiting for someone who would never come back.

Tuesday at midday that was what the text had said, and he waited outside his flat at twelve dead on.

a black car pulled up, and he knew better now to be worried, there was no need to be worried about kidnap any more, he was no longer part of that world. the king of that world had fallen along with Sherlock.

He knew soon there would be power struggles who would be the next Moriarty, but it didn't matter to him, he was no longer part of any of that, he was back in the mundane world, where the most exiting thing he had to look forward to was being a freelance coroner every now and then.

He was in his black suit, a suit that had last seen an outing for Mrs Hudson's funeral, he really needed to find some happier event for it, or else he would be classed as one of those strange people that went to funerals and not much else.

Sliding into the car he found himself seated next to Mycroft.

"You received my text?"

"Yes" John replied.

Mycroft nodded, he was dressed as ever in an immaculate suit, black, with a black shirt, and a white tie, it was a striking effect, John had long known that Mycroft never did anything without a reason, he wondered what this reason was.

"Are you alright?" Mycroft asked.

"it depends on your definition really, if you mean am I still keeping fed clean and healthy then yeah, otherwise not really no"

"I find myself in the same predicament"

John smiled at this, even in the throes of grief Mycroft was still eloquent, it was a trait that Sherlock had inherited as well.

"Have you got any appointments this afternoon, government officials to brief or anything?" John realised how stupid this sounded but couldn't quite bring himself to care.

"No, today is for Sherlock."

"Devoting a whole day off to him, interesting" he replied, because it seemed the sort of thing that Sherlock would have said.

"I am not heartless despite what you may think Doctor Watson."

"Did I accuse you of being heartless, because if I did I apologise."

"You sound tired Doctor Watson"

"And you look old."

"I understand what you are trying to do John, and I appreciate it I really do, but not today"

"Alright" John replied a half smile flitting across his face. it was the first real smile for a week, little did John know that Mycroft saw it as a small step on the way to the rebuilding of John Watson.

It would take time but Doctor Watson's patients needed him to be whole.

"I would have thought you would have used a bit of colour you know, hide the grey"

Mycroft laughed and looking at him John saw an echo of Sherlock in the laughing features.

"He taught you well didn't he?"

"I learnt from the best yeah" John replied

"There is nothing wrong with growing old gracefully"

"No, of course not" John replied.

"Anyway if I had coloured my hair Sherlock would have made some quip or other about it"

"He would wouldn't he." John said softly. because he knew that was the sort of thing Sherlock would have done just to rile his brother.

The service was clinical and simple, John wondered if he should become a vicar, he could recite the words that the man with the dog collar was saying perfectly, he wondered what that said about him.

There was no body in the polished oak coffin, Mycroft knew that as did John, but the others didn't John wondered if maybe Mycroft had hired a rent a crowd or something, but then he recognised a face.

Molly Hooper.

she still looked more or less the same, a few crows feet and laughter lines marred her face, but it didn't detract from her natural beauty, like the rest of them she had begun greying slightly, but she was still the same Molly Hooper.

it was comforting to see someone he knew, other than Mycroft, here, comforting but at the same time it made it more real.

That hurt, it was a physical pain, between his breast bone.

He had always been a man of science, of reason, Sherlock had complemented him various times because of these facts, there was only one reason for having a pain where he was experiencing it, and that would be a medical reason, and he was in the best of health.

So it wasn't medical.

It wasn't the first time that he had experienced this pain, the first time had been when he had received 'The News' from Mycroft. It had been such an intense pain that he had practically collapsed in front of the fire hugging himself, half afraid that if he let go he would fly apart.

After the service he mingled, half listening to tales of Sherlock from the 'Rent a crowd' but all the time looking for Molly.

He found her in the graveyard, sitting on a bench a way away from Sherlock's grave.

he sat with her, not sure who should speak first.

She obviously thought the same thing.

"Hi" he decided to speak first.

She smiled at him and he saw the corner of her eyes crinkle and the warmth behind their watery depths.

"How are you?" She asked.

"I'm, well i'm still here you know" He replied shrugging.

"What happened, I mean were you there? you must have been, after all the two of you always were inseparable."

"I wasn't there, not at the end, and it was Jim, remember Jim from IT"

she nodded and smiled "I was an idiot about him, I should have realised"

"Don't be silly, even I was fooled"

"He wasn't"

"No, he was always soo sure that right was right"

"Was it quick?" she asked a shadow crossing her face.

John shrugged, "Umm I think so, I really don't remember much about what Mycroft told me, it was all just noise after I heard those two words, He's… well you know which words"

She nodded.

"But look at you you look wonderful Molly"

"No I don't I look old, I'm sure I never had half as many wrinkles and saggy bits before"

"No none of us are who we were any more"

"It must be especially bad for you John, I don't know what I'd do if David were gone"

"David?"

"Yeah, a few years after I moved I met a nice guy, David, my husband."

"That's, thats wonderful"

She laughed then "Overuse of the word wonderful John"

"Oh shut up, its the best news I've heard in the past few weeks, come to think of it its the only news I've heard in the past few weeks"

"What will you do now?" Molly asked bringing the conversation back to the present.

"I don't know, I'll carry on, thats what people do isn't it, I mean we'll both go to our homes and tomorrow will be a new day, life will go on"

"You don't have to like it you know"

He nodded, staring out at the freshly covered grave.

"If ever you want some time away from London then you could come and stay with us you know, here I've got our address written down, I thought I'd do it in case you turned up"

"In case?"

"I wasn't sure if you would, I mean not that you wouldn't because you didn't care, but just that you might not… I'll stop talking now"

John smiled a little and put a hand on Molly's arm "Its fine don't worry, and yeah I'll keep it in mind" John replied knowing it was an empty promise, but taking the slip of paper nonetheless.

"We'd better go and join everyone else, I think they're going to head to the pub over the road for the wake, and a good strong drink would go down a treat about now"

"I've never heard someone speak so much sense in my life Molly" suddenly a nice beer sounded like a good plan indeed.

The days after the funeral were the worst, he just glided, there was no other way to put it, things were going on in his life, and he saw them happen, but it were as if he was just gliding past, none of it really mattered, none of it really interested him, until he got a text

_Shame on you for not telling the good Chief Inspector._

Mycroft. He was right though he hadn't thought to tell Greg.

that lunchtime he called the police man and invited him out to the pub for a drink, an informal setting for a hard conversation.

"Christ John you Look awful!"

"I've been better yeah, what are you drinking?"

"Pint of Tetley's mate"

John nodded ordering two pints of beer and shuffling to a table near the window.

when he had told Greg the man was white as a sheet.

"Nah, you're having a laugh, very funny John, but where is Sherlock, we've just got a case that I need his help with"

"He's…" John passed a hand over his eyes willing himself to go on, desperately seeking some form of strength from within himself that hadn't been depleted by this whole sorry affair. "… He's dead Greg, His funeral was Tuesday"

"John are you serious?"

John nodded words failing him.

he went through the ins and outs of the whole ordeal with Greg, answering his questions, listening to his platitudes and apologies, but they just passed over him, they weren't real, they didn't matter. They were just things people said because they didn't know what else to say.

He didn't blame Greg, after all he didn't understand Sherlock and the weird sort of relationship John had forged with him.

They sat there afterwards, when there were no words left nursing their drinks in silence.

that night mind numbed sufficiently by drink he fell asleep in their bed, nose pressed to Sherlock's pillow, inhaling the mans scent, remembering all the times they had lain here together, exploring, touching, kissing, being.

John had never felt so hollow in his life.

The next morning he woke to find he was cuddling Sherlock's pillow and flung it away from him as if it had bitten him, he couldn't let his scent permeate Sherlock's pillow, if it did then it would cease to smell of Sherlock, and that would be bad.

The day after he wrote up the last case, he called it Sherlock Holmes, it needed no other title, it was after all an obituary of sorts, a goodbye.

Weeks passed, treacle slow and months passed the same, before he knew it a year had passed, he was forty eight,

A year had passed him by and he hadn't even noticed, he made a trip to Sherlock's empty grave and stood there, he had never been much good at these things, speaking, feelings, not really, he could tell people how he felt that was fine but just speaking them to the open air where anyone could hear them, it seemed wrong, the words that he wanted to speak should have been whispered in the dead of night, or upon leaving for a day at work, not like this.

"Damn it" he said out loud. "WHy do you have to make things so difficult even now when you're not here its still difficult. It shouldn't be you know, this should be easy, you should be standing here with me, you aren't even there, not really your somewhere else, probably getting eaten by fish or alligators, you never even told me where you were going, you just said you wouldn't be gone long. What the hell do you call this?"

It was too much to bear all these words that he had stored up spilling freely out of his out, John Watson wept.

He thought after the first year things got easier, the first year mark and things got better that's what people had told him, and he had believed them, it did not get easier, it just got more difficult to remember things, things like what it sounded like to be woken p by a badly played violin at an ungodly hour in the morning, or what Sherlock smelt like, how his voice sounded, those snuffly noises he would make when John had finally coaxed him to sleep, it was difficult to remember what Sherlock looked like, he had never really been one for photos, he had called them a waste of time.

"Its not fair, How can I say I loved you if I can't remember you, it's all fading away Sherlock, and I don't want to be that man, the man I was before I met you, he was, he was terrible, god he had no idea what living was, none at all, and I can feel myself slipping back into that life Sherlock, and I've got no cause to fight it, Oh what am I doing, I'm going round the bend here talking to an empty grave, talking to Yorick is better than talking to an empty coffin. I Uh, I had a tidy up, your violin is tucked away safely, all your experiments have gone, they were getting to be a bit of a health hazard. Yorick is still around though, I didn't have the heart to chuck him out, and he's good company, theres only rubbish on the tele these days. your suits I donated to a few different Charity shops, there's no point keeping them, they don't fit me and I never was a suit person. I'd better go, I'll.. I'll come see you again soon ok?" he didn't expect an answer, the dead tell no tales.

Years passed and time moved on, John's black suit got another outing five years after Sherlock's funeral, Mycroft Holmes had a big turnout, but John wondered if any of them really cared, he doubted it.

each year he would vista the Holmes's graves and wonder how long he had left, how long could he cheat death for, he had lasted longer than he thought he would. it would be just his luck to outlast them all, Molly, Lestrade, Anderson Donovan, all of them.

He wondered when people would start whispering about him when he passed them in the street, or whether they had already started, He didn't go out much now, it wouldn't surprise him if he died in his sleep and no-one noticed for weeks, he found that he should care but didn't.

It was when he was doing a final clear out of Sherlock's things one october morning six years after his death that he found something interesting.

A letter.

He opened it with Shaking hands, it was from Sherlock, how had he not seen it before? where had it been? the corners were starting to curl and the page was starting to yellow, but he recognised Sherlocks spidery handwriting nonetheless.

two words were written there, just two, and to John they hurt more than if Sherlock had written pages and pages about his feelings.

**I'm sorry.**

The years passed and People gossiped about the old man living in Baker St, the hermit who talked to a skull. John didn't care, he had his memories and Yorick. they were all he needed, he still had a job, a few days at the surgery and he had rented Mrs Hudson's flat out to a young family.

when he was gone the house would be theirs.

he babysat for the young boy when the parents worked late, told the boy about a wonderful consulting detective, who ran after criminals with his trusty blogger.

Hayden Loved the stories.

When John Watson died at the not so grand age of sixty seven the funeral was a quiet affair, a vicar the coffin bearers and an old man, with curly grey hair and piercing grey eyes. the vicar passed on his condolences to the man, who waved them away.

when the churchmen had gone the old man stayed.

"I thought you'd understand, I left you a letter." was all the man said.

He let the silent tear fall, wondering how he could go back to life now he knew his blogger, his lover was not alive.

**And there you have it, I apologise, I really do but It just had to be written, it was written and uploaded in one day, in between work and other little jobs! Once again i do apologise! **

**please review even if its to tell me how much you hate me!**


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